Greetings. There are few things in life more frustrating than being punished without explanation, appeal, or recourse. This holds true in life-threatening locales like Gitmo under the previous administration, and in more prosaic situations such as Internet commerce.

Sometimes these situations could be avoided or cured with just a bit more communications -- but absent that, even relatively simple matters can easily fester into much bigger problems.

I was reminded of this when a major Net personage forwarded me a link to this new write-up on Google Checkout merchant controversies and related accusations against Google.

In a nutshell ... Google Checkout provides a merchant account system for Internet purchases as an alternative to eBay's vastly dominant PayPal.

Google Checkout (henceforth referred to as "GC") seems to be a well thought out, generally well-implemented system. Many small and large merchants, fed up with PayPal for one of many reasons, have migrated to GC successfully.

However, when something "goes wrong" relating to GC, some merchants apparently find themselves suddenly cut off from their accounts without ready explanation, recourse, appeal, or in some cases refunds, as in the link referred to above (a woman apparently selling a programming techniques e-book). Unfortunately this appears to be far from an isolated case.

A common thread I've detected in these various cases is an apparent dispute regarding the nature of the merchandise or service being provided by the merchant. Obvious cases of fraud are one thing, but some of the examples I've now found seem much more complex -- for example, involving collections for nonprofit organizations, sales of particular non-tangible goods or services, and so on (Google provides an extensive list of forbidden product categories). But sometimes there is no obvious relationship between the product being sold and any of the verboten items -- and without a clear explanation of why an account was terminated, merchants are left totally in the dark.

Google -- to its credit -- wants to keep GC as "clean" a service as possible, and accomplishing this in today's Internet world is inevitably going to mean closing down offending accounts. But what's particularly perplexing regarding GC is the form letter shutdown notices that some merchants receive, that explicitly refuse to explain why they were terminated (citing unnamed "security reasons"). Nor do routine mechanisms appear to exist to offer Google exculpatory information, or for explaining misunderstandings or possible errors in Google's analysis of the situations.

In essence, the GC shutdown notices act as prosecutor, judge, and executioner, all in one fell swoop, seemingly explicitly without appeal.

That Google has the legal right to choose with whom it does merchant business seems a reasonable enough premise. But it's hard to visualize other aspects of our lives -- particularly when real money is involved -- where we'd be willing to accept such a one-sided pronouncement.

Google presumably feels (and I'm attempting to get some official statements on this matter) that they are merely protecting their GC service from scofflaws and lowlifes who might wish to rip off customers, and to avoid dealing with certain highly controversial categories of merchandise and services. A useful goal set, but what happens when innocents are falsely accused, again without explanation or obvious recourse?

Is Google so confident in their processes that they view errors as impossible? Or are a certain number of errors viewed as the cost of doing business, on the assumption that few upset parties would bother to pursue the matter (e.g. in small claims court, etc.)? Is the attitude that given the large number of GC merchant accounts there just isn't the time or resources to give every accused merchant a full hearing?

I do support Google's rigorously enforcing rules to protect Google Checkout. However, without clear explanations for account shutdown, formal procedures for obtaining additional information and for appeals, and in general without a basic sense of fairness in such situations, innocent parties can all too easily be mischaracterized as violators.

Even if 100% of the merchants in these cases deserved to be kicked off of GC, the current form letter shutdown procedure seems fundamentally unconscionable. If nothing else it could be interpreted as arrogant, and might even invite regulatory or legislative interventions.

I do not assert that Google should change their rules about who should be allowed to use Google Checkout, or regarding what should or should not be sold through the system.

However, I do feel that a significant change in the manner of communications associated with such Google Checkout matters would be in both Google's and the Internet communities' short and long-term interests. I would also suggest that my prior proposals regarding a Google Ombudsman concept might be relevant.

Google is a great company with -- I truly believe -- an admirable corporate ethic, but effective public communications continues to be a sometimes notably weak spot in the Google milieu. I am confident though that Google has the ability to improve this aspect of their corporate culture by applying the same effort to this area as they have so successfully to the many other aspects of their brand and services.

--Lauren--